UC Board of Regents elects new chair, vice chair

The UC Board of Regents elected Regent Sherry Lansing, the board’s current vice-chair, to serve a one-year term as the new board chair and Regent Bruce Varner to serve as the new board vice-chair at their meeting Wednesday.

Lansing succeeds Russell Gould, who has served two consecutive terms as chair. Varner will succeed Lansing, who has also served two consecutive terms as vice chair.

After being appointed to the board by former Gov. Gray Davis in 1999 and again by former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2010 for a 12-year term, Lansing has held the position of chair of the board’s Health Services Committee and served on the Educational Policy and Governance committees. Varner was appointed by Schwarzenegger to a 12-year term in 2006 and has served as chair of the board’s Committee on Compensation, vice chair of the Committee on Finance and vice chair of the Committee on Governance.

Varner, an alumnus of UC Santa Barbara and UC Hastings College of Law, is a partner in the law firm Varner & Brandt LLP, with offices in Riverside and Upland and has been a member of the UC Riverside Foundation Board of Trustees since December 1994.

Prior to her appointment to the board, Lansing was a high school math and science teacher in Los Angeles. She also ran her own production company and most recently was the chairman and CEO of Paramount Pictures.

“I’m honored to serve as chairman during these difficult economic times,” Lansing said in a statement. “To meet our challenges, we have to look for cost savings as well as other sources of revenue. But as we face these financial struggles, one thing we will never, ever sacrifice is the quality of a UC education.”